democrats. it is coming. obviously clinton and obama late out at least their initial thoughts. none of the three laid out enough. i have written speeches how we should get out in the interest of time, i will go to your first question, general david petraeus. on the face of those selections by secretary gates they were ok, general david petraeus was a very impoverished general, very smart general, he knows that area. secretary gates and the president deserved the commanders that they want to. in my 12 years as senator i only loaded against one cabinet nominee and unless the cabinet nominee is so bad and so beyond

the ability to resuscitator rehabilitate i always give the president the benefit of the doubt. the president deserves his team. general david petraeus is a good choice. got remember something about the army or the service. the foreign service like many of you, the war is not general david petraeus's war, it is the president's war and the military, all the people who work in the government follow the policy of the elected civilian government. they can give their opinions and they need to end military leaders would have more forcefully given their opinions over the last five years, might be a lot better. i have not made any secret that i am very disappointed in some of these people. i have said publicly some of these guys in my opinion wouldn't be corporals in miami and some are four star generals. nevertheless i am not the president. on the face of that they deserve

their commanders. general david petraeus is qualified. we will take yours and be real quick. >> i hope this is not too philosophical. united states ambassador, there seem to be two approaches to foreign policy in the twenty-first century. one of the neo conservatives which have great power in this administration. check name names which i will not do. >> i do in this book. >> the new conservative ideological approach to foreign policy seems to be prevalent now as opposed to the traditional national interest pragmatic approach or is there some other approach? what do you see in the twenty-first century? >> i see a policy regardless who the president is of clear national interest and a policy must be for any nation whether it is the russians or the chinese, all nations, all

individuals respond in their own self-interest, nothing wrong with that. that is predictable. the policy of our country, foreign policy, all the instruments of power it that you use to frame a policy must be driven with some higher purpose. i mentioned purpose, we lost purpose. we have been about ricocheting crisis to crisis. there's no strategic thinking, hasn't been strategic thinking for a long time in our foreign policy. it is the point i keep making. so does dick lugar who is one of the most accomplished foreign policy thinkers in the country as i do joe biden, one of the best. they talked about this for years. you must frame a strategic context first and then you frame the policy to fit the strategic context, the national interest of your country.

what john bose. millennium john's account. that was one of the more creative things we have done. it is bigger than that. until we get a president that does that, then is able to implement, by the way in partnership with the congress, doesn't mean the congress has to agree with everything but you can't treat article i of the constitution like it is an appendix, like it is a nuisance. if for no other reason you can't sustain a foreign-policy, you can't sustain a war, the people of america, 70% consistently are gone in iraq. you can prove or disprove that. those are not my numbers. it is over. it is over like it is a matter of how we get out now. you have got to have a policy

that the american people understand, make sense for the country and will sustain. that requires partnership. >> thank you very much. appreciate your time. [applause] >> thank you all for coming out tonight. appreciate it. [inaudible conversations] >> tell us what you think about our programming this weekend. you can tweet us at booktv, comment on our facebook call or send us an e-mail, booktv, and nonfiction books every weekend on c-span2. ♪ >> the city itself is try

cultural. we both more authors and poets than most communities. >> welcome to santa fe on booktv. with the help of comcast cable partners for the next 90 minutes we will explore the literary scene and history of new mexico and its capital, a city resting at an altitude of almost 7,000 feet whose name means hope and faith in spanish. we will travel in and around this town of 80,000 to meet with local lawyers to learn about the unique cultures, personalities and history of the city and state that dates back 400 years to the times of colonization attempts by the spanish. all this and more as booktv and our comcast cable partners take you to santa fe. >> we're here in the palace

press. james mcgrath morris and these are early printing presses. it seemed like a perk picked -- perfect place to talk about the man revolutionized american newspapers. webmac first started working on a boat people would react with recognition when i said i was writing about joseph pulitzer the clear from their expressions they knew the name but nothing about his life because pulitzer shares his fame with alfred nobel for a prize that he endow but not for what he did in his life. few people remember that alfred nobel was an explosives or ammunitionmaker and you understand the significant role that joseph pulitzer played in american history but like some of the giants of the 18th-century these names we remember, carnegie, morgan, rockefeller, pulitzer played a significant role at a critical moment in american history which is the industrial age, the age that made america the way we think of ourselves today and the role he played was he was the midwife at the birth of a modern mass media. before this time we didn't have the kind of media we now swim in every day, the notion of

americans checking the news on their phones or going to cnn or watching c-span. these things were cultivated in that period sauternes out pulitzer played a historically significant role and the fascinating life that made for great reading but the influence he yielded is with us today. the reason people don't remember pulitzer today as much is in some ways his accomplishment is so happenstance. we're so used to what it is. in the nineteenth century, printing was the internet. i can book a ticket now or everyday -- all commonplace things we don't think it's such a great deal and in some way i am not sure americans remember who morgan was or who rockefeller was or who carnegie was but we drive across a bridges made with steel, that is

the carnegie gift, using cars powered by oil, all the world that rockefeller built and using a financial system built on morgan and consuming news built on a system developed and created by people like pulitzer. pulitzer was born in the 1840s and came to the united states as a mercenary soldier to fight in the vietnam-the civil war. they went to recruit young men promising passage here. he did not see any action. like many veterans after the war he was unemployed, to reintegrate people into the economy and ends up in st. louis where he becomes befriended by a major german american who becomes a senator from missouri and a newspaper publisher. "without reservations: the cartoons of ricardo cate" pulitzer enters as the press at that point. at an extraordinary rate we don't do anymore but comparing to modern-day immigrants. within five years of his entry into the united states elected to the state legislature of missouri. that kind of speed of integration we have in the nineteenth century when people

are coming. she becomes fabulously successful and i am shortening the story in st. louis as the publisher of the post-dispatch and the in new form of journalism. let me give you a comparison. ricardo cate -- pulitzer is like a modern-day search for. you go to the beach and look, water beyond where the waves are breaking you see men and women paddling lazily in their surfboard, suddenly one of them paddles with extraordinary speed because they perceive that little undulation is going to be the best wave of the day and the others don't. pulitzer in the nineteenth century, tidal waves of social change he was going to ride. what word a? people were beating farms and coming to cities and working in factories, becoming commuters. important economic decisions on farms were becoming housewives. paper was being made with such strength out of wood, not clock, printing presses at high speed that became possible to print a

newspaper thousands of copies and get it in the streets. the victorian internet had been invented, the telegraph, bringing news from washington d.c. that morning. what happened in congress would reach st. louis in the afternoon. pulitzer produced an afternoon paper that was entertaining to read, contained economic information, advertising so the wives knew where to get them, contains the latest news so the next day's papers were printing yesterday's news and he did more than that. he discovered that an urban life, tremendous drama that you could write up in a nonfiction way the way dickens was writing tales of the poor in london so the paper was interesting to read. all these elements combined into what people call western because st. louis was considered western, western journalism so like a broadway play, they had broadway plays before bringing them to new york, pulitzer did the same thing. he brought his newspaper to new

york city, brought the bankrupt new york world and making millions of dollars and revolutionize journalism in new york, new york being the immediate center of the country and the world at that time he revolutionize journalism. one set of anecdotes that is an analogy for the importance of pulitzer, pulitzer created a newspaper in the new york world in new york and looked to the lower east side where the masses of immigrants were coming in the 1880s and 89s and amassed millions of people coming from overseas. new york was the point of endicott ellis island was about to open up and the upper class on the upper reaches of these folks as a dangerous group. they saw them as poor, dirty, all these things. pulitzer saw them as potential readers so he admonishes reporters to write about their lives. so the paper would say tiny tot falls to his death from a

building. the upper class drinking tea with their royal fingers, such sensationalistic prattle, they were missing the point. to the people on the lower east side in the bars and overcrowded tenements, this was their lives being portrayed in print. kids did fall to their deaths. in summary was so hot in those tenement buildings this was the most densely populated place in the world, people would go to the roof to breed at night and children would fall to their death and this was, by jacob read the journalist. by writing about them he was dignifying their lives. i give this comparison all the time. i ask people if you word to take me home my bet on your refrigerator is a clipping of some sort, your child's graduation or accomplishment at school, said news in the obituary, those events occurred we got this weather in print or not so why do we keep these? because riding than in print gives meaning to actions. the lower east side class of

people saw the paper as a friend that produced this kind of dignity. was the entry to american life for as little as a penny. on sunday you would get a penny is because the telephone book with the dress patterns, easy to understand stories, serialization of literature. we download music, old stuff. then he printed sheet music, the latest tune. they would play the latest music. pulitzer build an enormously important symbiotic relationship with the poorest people in new york with this paper and the return two things happened that were amazing. one is the statue of liberty being given to the united states by the french people, not the french government but the french people and in return we were supposed to raise money on our own, not the congress. the statue was on its way over and we hadn't raise the money for the pedestal so pulitzer ran a front-page story about the scandal no one paid for this and an editorial saying bring your pennies and nickels.

i will put your name in the paper and thank you for it and we will raise the money privately. you have to understand he is a baron of the nineteenth century, so trusted by the lower classes of new york that kids would come with pennies, workers would come in which nichols and say here it is, i trust you will use this. like my going to a major corporate leaders and say here's $5 and i hope you will use it in the right way. it amplifies the relationship. the next day in the paper your name would be listened to that contribution. the same page with the vanderbilt and afters and morgans, michael roche and she's name for having given a penny. the sculptor's pedestal was built that way and the statue of liberty was put up and there's a statue of pulitzer out in the park. my last bit of architectural tour of new york to show the significance of this, pulitzer has recreated american

journalism. is important, the papers are being published every hour of the day. there is an important file in new york like the one in 1905, a reporter would sit in the room, right is story and hand it to a copy boy with the cup and open phone, dictate it back to the paper and print the trial and put it in the streets and little boys would shout so and so accused of so and so. that was the cnn of that time. so important that on election night people gathered by the thousands in park row because there was no radio to tell you when and if you look at the front of the newspaper with big board and put the results so pulitzer became the midwife of this world of journalism in which people depended on it, turned to news for entertainment, they would say did you read that story in the new york world or maybe the competitor but the point is people would talk about the news, some making all this money need to build a new headquarters so he went to park row and bought french's hotel, a great

lesson the young people because you always hear revenge is a dish best served cold, the hotel had kicked him out of the lobby as an indigent unemployed veteran of the civil war in 1865 so he came back, bought the hotel, tore it down, built the tallest building on the globe and that the top aide dome shaped building at the top where the editorial offices were and put gold leaf on the tops of the top floor of the building which looked over all of new york, tallest building on the globe at this point was where the newsroom was and where pulitzer's offices were and what is so significant is it remade the landscape of new york. think of it in terms of the empire state building in the 20th century, that kind of profound effect. just like he remade the landscape of journalism he remained a landscape of new york with this building and this is the profound moment that illustrates it all. when those immigrants kept coming in to new york harbor and this is what people forget.

when immigrants left the steppes of russia there with note delta flight, virgin air flight to see mom the next year. you were betting your last dollar that you might be able to get away from the oppressive left and reestablish your life in his new land. as you enter the harbor terrific moment, you had your first look at the new land and the fog is there, maybe the fog will clear and you will see the statue of liberty and those immigrants would see that, go by the statue of liberty and they would not know the pedestal being built with pennies and nickels, then they would turn and have the first look at the new york city skyline, the city that would welcome them, where they learn their english, where they get their first foothold on the american economic life and if the sun was right you be leaning off of the gold dome of the world building, not a monument to congress or banking or manufacturing or agriculture but a monument to the american press, the only constitutionally explicitly constitutionally protected business in the united states by the first amendment,

doesn't say you have the right to make steel, the new york world's that will be there, the ticket to understanding how to get ahead, learning english and to american politics. that is the effect pulitzer had back then. he was a difficult man to live with as a biographer. he was the howard hughes of the nineteenth century. at the peak of his power, when he was publisher of the most powerful publisher of the globe, his paper had the power of the new york times, cnn and washington post and cbs all combined. people read the world in the way that people when i was a child used to watch the three network's on tv. immense influence. he reached enormous power and began to go blind. like beethoven who couldn't hear his own music pulitzer couldn't read his own paper. he was beset with a number of psychological issues and one of which was found disturbs him. he built a name for himself,

famous tower of silence in which he could get refuge from sound. is new york city mansion at a special bed room separated with separate walls, inch thick plate glass to keep the noise out. if you were invited to have lunch with him and you ate your salary and a fashion that was too noise you would get a memo the next day saying next time you have lunch with mr. pulitzer no crunch crunch please. this became an obsession for him and he became obsessively be set with problems. the second half of his life he got on a world's largest yards, morgan's was three feet bigger. the engines were in a special part of the yachts so the sound wouldn't reach him and he went back and forth across the world and one of the most daring rider that worked for him, david cabrera, a famous novelist later fascinated, wro

note and said on not the one you can free geographically. adana minor applicable-operation that involved some bleeding. the household was in a to z. teenage daughter upstairs -- pulitzer stands up at the dining room table and said what about me? i am suffering here. his self-centered this, his ego maniac, his social issues makes him off fascinating character. as he went blind, is what took a lot of a painting of his mother, we would go to a large that thing goes, she had a painter paint a large vision so he could lose his eyesight he could see his daughter. then later i portray at one

point she does have an affair and use cents you go, girl. he was still impossible. people say what is joseph pulitzer's legacy? it has two parts to it. he gave -- left in his will money to create two things, what is the journalism school at columbia university which is celebrating its centennial. this is very important, not just -- journalism school, canvas, what is important is pulitzer realize journalism like any profession whether being a lawyer or denver -- dentist or professional training, he took his money to create a school by which people could become professionally trained and become journalists because it is responsible crowd. what i think is so important about his legacy is a lot of the solutions to the modern mass media's problems will come out of those institutions where younger people are trying to become journalists and have to figure out where like betty weimer 0 -- pulitzer figured out

a way to figure out how to make it work so the next pulitzer a come out of the school recreated. the other is the pulitzer prize. that was money left behind to reward journalists and newspapers and writers and artists and other people for great contributions. the two aspects that are significant, if you -- it changes your life. the joke is now you know what the first week keywords of your obituary will be. pulitzer prize winner. that reflects the power of that gift, that prize. now a century after pulitzer's that we are people using pulitzer's name. it does something that shares with the nobel peace prize. if you look carefully the nobel peace prize is often given to people who are in danger. could be a woman in burma standing up for democracy. could be a group trying to bring peace in the dangerous place like northern ireland. the reason the prize is given is

in a sense to protect that person because you are not going to go and fascinate somebody who just won the nobel peace prize, bringing world attention. the most significant pulitzer prize is the one for public service and it is often given to newspapers who have been daring recovering something the community didn't want them to cover and when they cover something the community didn't want them to cover the journalists are ostracized, the local towns often pull out their advertisements which is the economic base and the newspapers take a tremendous risk to write about something that could be a scandal or something important that the community doesn't want to hear about it and when they get the pulitzer prize for public service is national recognition of the importance they have done and in a sense provides the same umbrella of protection the nobel peace prize does for people who are daring. pulitzer was an extraordinarily significant person who to this day affects our lives. just like a child may recognize

a mannerism from their father or mother or haven't you suddenly say i am just like my mother and you recognize those routes, we as our culture need to understand the law of the habits we have today come from people who came before us. when you read pulitzer you understand a lot of the traits we have about consumption news, understanding news, news as a form of entertainment. these are radical notions from his time that we inherited and have taken on to build our society. the other thing that i think is really important about pulitzer that we need to think about as a seismic change in the american media. pulitzer hammered away over and over again that the newspaper business is not just a business. there's a public-service aspect to it. a democracy cannot function without an informed public. somebody has to be at the school board meeting at 2:00 in the morning when they are voting on a contract who is going to build the next school.

as the press shrinks' today there are no people at those meetings keeping an eye on things. the press likes the darkest resources of our society. we know about hardships of poverty whether we want to or not because of the press. we know about corruption in the government and it gets fixed because of the press. we know about what is on the public agenda, sometimes too much like the fiscal cliff we hear about over and over again but these are critically important role the press plays and pulitzer's story is a reminder that these are businesses run by the new york times and washington post but they perform this enormously important civic action of informing us and the question we have to deal with this as these papers can a longer support themselves what will come next to replace them? that is part of what i hope people take away from the book. >> santa fe has a high celebration of any capital city in the united states sitting 7,199 feet above sea level at

the base of the mountains with the highest peak reaching 13,170. booktv's recent visit to the area with the help of comcast brings you much of the eyrie's literary and historical culture. ♪ ♪ >> i and barbara harrelson. we are in downtown santa fe historic plaza in the palace of the governor which is the oldest covered building in the united states. santa fe is the oldest capital in the united states and has been here for 400 years. it has wrought stories to tell. i have been conducting a

literary walking tours of santa fe since 1996. i would love for you to join me to hear some stories. we are starting on the plaza in downtown santa fe because this is the heart of santa fe today and it has been from the beginning, its founding. this is where community events still happen. this is where traditional christmas pageants take place in santa fe today as they have for the last couple centuries and also the first american revolution took place, a result of 1680. i have a book here, lugar of the first american revolution. by native american writers joe standow, this is an important event, not only in santa of a history but in the history of the nation because this is the first successful uprising by native people against the

european conquerors. people join together and forced the spanish out of santa fe into exile 200 miles south of here where they stayed for the next 13 years. our history and culture is so rich because of the three dominant culture groups starting with the native people and their strong oral storytelling tradition. before there were books and alphabets for them to write their stories, they did rock art, they told their stories to their families and passed them from generation to generation. even today the native people who knew the most sacred stories should be passed by word of mouth. another important influence on literature and culture are the spanish who ruled in santa fe for two centuries.

the first piece of literature to emerge was actually written by a spanish officer who came here with that conquistadores and it is his first hand account of the settling of this country and this part of the world and the same battles. .. we were part of mexico for 25 years, and then after the united states fought a war with mexico, we became a u.s. territory, and

the santa fe trail opened, bringing in americans, or the first quote-unquote white men into this part of the world. and the impressions of the early traders and settlers who came across the santa fe trail are an important part of our literature because they recorded their experiences and their impressions of santa fe, and many of them could not believe that a royal city had houses made of mud. there was a little bit of culture shock. others took to the exotic feel of the place and the beautiful mountain setting. that's true today. ensanta fe inspired strong emotions. for example, an, a czech tyler historian at the university of new mexico wrote a book called, the myth of santa fe, in which she documents the evolution of santa fe and why the city

fathers decided we needed to change the santa fe look to an earlier time in order to attract tourism, and why it's not necessarily an advantage for santa fe's culture, and certainly not to events authentic indigenous architecture. a famous novel was written that is still in print today, has nothing at all to do with new mexico. it was an extent of chance that the our was general lee wallace, who wrote ben-hur. the last two chapters were written here in the palace of the governors because general lee wallace had been called pop by the president of the united states to come here and serve as territorial governor and try to resolve the lincoln county and the other problems in this very

wild territory. i mean, gun battles were taking place -- and land grabs were taking place all over new mexico. it was really wild west. while he was her he had to grapple with billy the kid, and billy the kid is a real, which who has inspired probably more writing, fiction and nonfiction, than anyone else in new mexico's history. some of the letters that billy the kid wrote to general lee wallace, asking him to honor the par don, which billy the kid said the governor reneged on. some of those letters are in our library and only been acquired in the last few years. what surprised me is that billy the kid was literate and his hand writing was pretty good. but the legends about billy go on and on. the man who killed billy the kid, pat garrett, wrote his

story, called the autobiography of billy the kid, and one of the world's foremost living billy the kid experts, has annotated that book, so there's plenty of literature out there, fiction and nonfiction, if you want to find out what you think about billy the kid. so we're near the famous santa fe cathedral. the basilica of st. francis is the patron saint of santa fe. santa fe means holy shade. one of the most famous stories is -- historical fiction based on the real life of the ashe bishop who came to san jose in 18 50, first as santa fe's first bishop and later the ashe bishop. he was sent here to make reforms and ended up ex-communicating

some priests in new mexico. another book was written by paul horton called santa fe, his life and times, and that's a book that should be read. >> we're here at 109 east palace, which is the name of a store front. it's also the name of a book. a nonfiction book which tells the back story, if you well, some of the personal stories of the scientists who came here to work on the manhattan project during world war ii to build the atomic bomb. and robert oppenheimer who had been chosen to lead the project, and oppenheimer new new mexico and knew that secluded plateau because he would come here as a

boy and spend summers at a ranch at los alamos and thought that would be the perfect place to do the secret project. so at it very well-respected and educated scientists who had fled nazi and fascist europe and they were recruited. they were met at the station and driven into town, and they would have checked in at this store, which was supposed to look like just a regular tourist store in santa fe. it was operate bid a woman named dorothy mckin nonwho oppenheimer recite, and she processed their paper work and gave them instructions, and los alamos was guarded with a secure perimeter and they wouldn't be coming back to accept the that often but if they did come they were to use not their own names, make up a name, and not mention

their name at all because they all spoke with thick european accent. so they managed to build the bomb and helped end the war earlier. but they definitely had an impact on santa fe. there were rumors about spies, and secrets being traded to the russians, and we know now that was done here in santa fe. another book that is very close to my heart, i want to toll you -- tell you about, it's an older book but it is nonfiction. the house at the bridge written by peggy church. it is a more important book and a more representative book in terms of taking in lots of assets of new mexico's history and culture. how we are a land of stark contrasts contrasts contrasts and contradictions in the old and new. and this covers the issues more

than 109 east palace, which is very specifically about the project and the people who were involved in it. so, if you want to learn more about santa fe and new mexico and its literary heritage, then i'm so delighted to have been able to take you on just a few stops and to just touch on a few of the important works of literature, and hope that it will prompt you to explore more on your own. >> richard cate, humorrorrist, and can tourist talks about his box without reservations. mr. cate describes native american challenges in today's society. archaeologists agree santa fe was habitated by pueblo indians

dating back to the year 1050. >> and my name is ricardo cate. an an are cyst for -- cartoonist for the newspaper, and a collection of my work was published on august 1st under the same name, without reservation. here's a cartoon page. and when i first started my cartoons were down here. when we first started. but because of the popularity, my cartoons have jumped up here to the top upper left-hand corner. i'm from santo domingo, new mexico. one of the 19 pueblos here in

new mexico, and all the pueblos are situated along the rio grande or long river here in new mexico. my cartoons depict native humor, and at first when i first started this cartoon, they were native characters in native situations, and my audience was geared towards natives. but in the last four or five years, i've -- they've become more universal, where they spilled out into the mainstream part of dominant culture. so it's more universal now. my inspiration came from reading "mad magazine" in the '7s. my friend david and i used to exchange comic books, spider many, hulk, and other marvel comic books but our favorite one was "mad magazine" and one of my favorite artists wars don

martin. so that's where my inspiration comes from. i started doodling my own, characters, and because i grew up on the res sir separation not mainstream, my cartoons were native looking, and that's where they didn't -- some of my characters have big noses and some of the tribes up north, like the plains tribes, the natives up there, they tend to have big noses, and people think that's why i draw the big noses. it's because don martin drew his characters with large nose, so i followed him in doing that but my inspace -- i'm inspired by the people i drew up with. my friends and family, members of my tribe, and just basically watching people and some of the things they do. it's surprising if you pay attention to what people do and

what people say, there's a lot of humor you can find, and this one says, hey, guys, up here, and they're talking to the globe furniture delivery people down and they have to go up through all the systems of ladders to get the couch up there and the people from here -- they like this because they know taos has building with the ladders. i started doodling, keeping my cartoons to myself. and i have three kids and i would show them -- get their feedback on it and showed some of my friends, and one day i was here in santa fe, and i was at my mother's. she sells jewelry up here in santa fe. and she asked me to wait for her for 0 couple hours. so this one day i had a couple hours and i was walking on the streets

streets streets of santa fe, and i happened to walk by the museum, originally i walked in for a journalism job because i was very interesting in writing, reporting, and when there wasn't one, i asked if they needed a cartoonist. and the editor that i was spoking to, she was -- her name was bernadette garcia. she explained to me they don't have a cartoonist here. they get their cartoons from the syndicate. and i said, would you like to look at my cartoons in and i kept asking her the question and about the fifth time she lost her patience with me and said, look, i told you, that's not how we do it here. you have to go to a syndicate. and i said, will you please look

at my cartoons, and i 11 or 12 drawings, and then she started having when she looked at them and asked the sports writers to look at them, and pretty soon there was 15 people in the room laughing, and then she said we have to have this. so now they still have that metal plate come in, but where my cartoon appears, there's a space there, and they put my cartoon here in the newsroom. so makes me feel good thinking they go through that much trouble to put my cartoon in there. but that first year, there were so many people writing, and they were appalled, shocked, by the cartoons, because of the nature of my cartoons, which i draw a lot of stuff that has to da with native things, like treaties and

scalping and whatnot, and people are appalled. they thought i was putting down natives. naturally they assumed it was a nonnative drawing this cartoon, and they would write in and all these awful letters would come in and how -- but i would answer each one of them and explain, i'm native myself and so they would write back and basically they would say, oh, i'm sorry. i guess it's okay, then. for some reason it's okay if a native does it, which i thought was always odd, but since then, there have been very few letters like that coming in, and it's been very widely accepted. there's another paper my cartoon appears in, that's the news specifically for the osage tribe in oklahoma. other than that my cartoon only appears in the santa fe new

mexican, and i tried to go to united syndicate. i sent them a letter along with some of my cartoons, and i got a pretty cordial letter back a week later, and it basically said that -- well, they turned me down. said, we're sorry but we cannot accept these cartoons. i don't think the country is ready for this. and so i sent an e-mail back to them and i said i think the country has been waiting 518 years for this cartoon. i think the response from my tribe was very surprising. at first i thought the worst, that it wouldn't be accepted, it would be laughed at. i know it's a cartoon, people should laugh at cartoons, but i meant it would be laughed at or put down by members of my tribe, but it has been opposite. they've accepted it and they

walk up to me and they actually give me ideas of cartoons to draw. i walk through the village and people walk up to me, hey, i have an idea for you. maybe you should draw this. and my tribe is known for its pottery making and jewelry making, and up until seven years ago, you wouldn't have thought a cartoonist would come from a conservative tribe such as ours. people tend to think we're stoic, but native humor is a big part of our lives, and so this cartoon has put santa fe on the map. a lot of americans have got then perspective of bill waterson and jim davis and other cartoonists who happen to be from the mainstream, and not a whole lot of people have seen or heard the

views of a native such as myself, and i think, in a way, this cartoon is very important because don't have a lot of voices. in fact if you watch the old movies about natives, we have nonnative indians, and so we don't have a lot of voices, and so this cartoon is one of the few voices we have, and so i hope my cartoons are able to be read with -- first that it's funny and at the same time i just want people to know that we're still here. and that we we have suffered a great deal, each one of the tribes, in its own way has suffered such the same fate as mine, but i'm hoping that people

realize that a lot of the wrongs that were done to natives are still -- it's still out there, and i just want to be able to put some of those issues back on the table, and just to remind people that this land came at a price, and that it's not taken for granted. and -- but as a people, at the same time, we should move on and i think humor is a way to do that. people who have read my cartoon for the first time, i hope they take with them an appreciation of the native culture and the native way of life, even though they may not agree with some of the cartoons or my views, i hope they can appreciate it because it is coming from a real person that has grown up on the reservations and has seen the

dominant culture and lived with the dominant culture, and some of the stuff i learned from that i put back in my cartoons, in this book. and so i hope they can appreciate that. i like it when i draw cartoons where the native world and the dominant culture clash. in fact the chief represents the tribes or the native people. and it could be any tribe. whereas the general who happens to look like custer, but i don't give him the name custer because that would limit me to how i would use him, and so sometimes i refer to him as custer, but his name is the general, and when a lot of people realize now after reading my cartoons for so many years, that the general actually represents the dominant culture, and so when the chief and the general are talking, it's the two cultures that are clashing. just to give you an example,

this line in this book where the general and the chief find a treaty -- they're signing a treaty and the chief just knocked over a bottle of ink and says, oops, i'm sorry, was this treaty important? and i like it when the two cultures clash because then it's a way -- it's my way of how i see the world when our cultures clash. and sometimes the chief or native -- sometimes fall short in understanding what is happening in the dominant culture, and likewise the dominant culture don't always understand where we're coming from. and so i'm hoping my cartoons diminishes some of that.

actually a good learning tool as well, and so -- i often thought about this, and this cartoon book is kind of like my history book. if i wrote a history book, this is what the history book would look like. so, a lot of the history books are written by people from the dominant culture, and so if a native were to write a history book, this would be it. >> next, hampton sides discusses his book: blood and thunder: the epic story of kit carson and the conquest of the american west. >> kit car sob is -- kit carson is better known for his fictional aspect. this is a guy that was the subject of hundreds of comic books and original pulp novels

called blood and thunder, and bad tv shows and bad movies, and so what we know about this guy is skewed and is sort of muddied by this cumulative history of fictionalizing. so, when i decided to write a book about him, i wanted to peel back the layers of the fiction and get to the real guy. turns out the real guy was infinitely more interesting than the fictional character. i found he was one of these characters in the sense that he was powerless an illiterate runaway from missouri, he knew everyone on the western stage. he intersected with all these historical figures, and was intimately involved in exploration in the west, in the mexican-american war, in the civil war, and the indian wars.

this is a guy intersected with history, big history, but in an intimate way. so i decided to devote a book and about four or five years of my life to trying to figure out who this guy was, kit carson. carson came out near a way to escape america. he was a runaway, and he had heard all these stories about the wild west and wanted to be one of these mountain men, one of this fur trappers. he did come out to new mexico. intersected with these guys, he became an intimate part of their world, which was mainly a french based culture. he learned french and became fluent in french and lived with these guys and learned the river systems of the west, basically hunting beaver pelts. but because he knew all the rivers -- that was really the key to understanding the topography and understanding how

to get around here. when the u.s. topographical corps sent an expedition to explore the west, they needed a guide, and fremont realized he's mountain men knew the west bert than anyone. so he hired kit carson as a guide, and carson acquitted him very well on these expeditions. he saved many people's lives and kept expedition on track and so he became in fremont's reports, which became best-selling books, carson becomes kind of a hero in these stories. but no one could seem to find this guy because he was living in new mexico and was never coming back east. so he was kind of this mythic character that people wanted to know a little bit more about. and so when the blood and

thunder books became more and more famous and more and more popular, kit carson was often the central character in these stories. these authors back east who wrote these terrible stories -- i would dare you to read them. they're not good. but in terms of literature. but these authors never really made any attempt to understand who the real kit carson was. they didn't get his consent to use his name. kit carson did not make any money of these books. he hate -- hated these books because they were a gross badge separation they set up caricature he had to spend his life living down. they would say kit carson would kill two indians before breakfast, which was considered a good thing back then, i guess. in fact he was married to a native american and was a very close friend to many tribes in the west.

so, these are the kind of things he had to spend most of the rest of his life living down. he did not understand where this was coming from. why people back east so desperately seemed to need this hero, this character who would personify manifest destiny, and whenever he went back east, people refused to believe that he was the real kit carson, because the real kit carson was 5'4", he was awkward around people, he spent most of his life an mule, so he had this kind of awkward gait. he wasn't this heroic action figure type guy that was portrayed in the blood and thundershowers. so there was this disconnect and people would say things like, well, you're not the kind of kit carson i'm looking for. they were sorely disappointed. so, i spent a lot of time in the book sort of trying to explore

the ways in which carson tried to deal with his celebrity. it was very awkward thing for him. with these blood and thunder books car son had another problem which was he cooperate read them because he was illiterate. so he had to have other people, perhaps around the camp fire, read these books to him, which was a source of embarrassment, and it just made it all the worse. there was one time in which carson's celebrity from the blood and thunder intersected with the real kit star son, and that was in the 1840s when he got a assignment to go try to find a woman, a white woman, ann white was her name -- who had been kidnap by apaches, and he followed the trail for five, six, seven -- almost -- closer to two weeks before he did find

ann white, and the element of surprise was compromised and various things happened, and she ended up getting killed. and when carson and his men went down to the camp site to sift through her belongings, what did they found? they found a blood and thunder book she had evidently been reading, and the star of the blood and thunder book was kit carson, and the plot line of the book was kit carson was sent out to rescue a woman who had been kidnapped by indians. so here she was reading this book thinking perhaps kit carson is near, she gets killed, and carson in the real story was not able to save this woman, and this just haunted him for the rest of his life, and he ordered the book burned. he thought these blood and thunder books were terrible. so, there are interesting ways in which mythology intersects with reality in his story.

one of the most famous stories about kit carson that was told, that is actually true -- a lot of these stories are not true. the more you dig into them you find, pretty suspicious. but one of ones that actually true is during the mexican war, he was in a battle near san diego called san pascual, and the american army had become surrounded by a mexican-californian army wielding lances, almost like don quixote or something. they were remarkably proficient with the lances and they were butchering the american army. and the american soldiers were getting gored and ripped to pieces by these long lances that -- almost like a justing -- jousting thing. so it was matter of time before they would all be killed, and

kit carson was given the assignment to try to make it to san diego where there was suppose lid some marines on out in the bay on a ship, and maybe go get help somehow. so are carson at night slips through this ring of mexican soldiers somehow, but in the course of slipping through this line of soldiers, he lost his shoes and he had to walk 30 miles to san diego bare foot, across this country that was just unbelievably difficult and thorny and full of cactus. and so he does do this, makes it to san diego, makes it to the ship. they immediately take him to the infirmary. his feet are completely torn up and he is a bloody mess. he can't walk. but he gets there, alerts the marines. the marines come and save the

american army, and carson is meanwhile just in the hospital for three or four weeks because his feet become infected, and he -- we never told this story, never talk about it. it was something that was always reluctant to put himself in the center of a story. but in a way he saved the american army in this situation, and there are stories like this throughout his life, where whenever there's something going on that the chips are down, carson somehow gets the assignment to fix the situation, and he does. and this certainly one of the best known. by the end of his life, when he died, the transcontinental railroad is being built. most of the tribes he was close to had been rounded up and sent to various reservations. his main impact, though, i think, what he is probably most famous for, is for one of the

very last thing his did in his life, which was the roundup of the navajo indians, which is, depending on how you count the numbers mook tribes and bloodlines, the largest tribe in the united states. he succeed in rounding if up the navajos and moving them to a reservation 500 miles away, and the destruction of the navajo culture and this long walk, as they call it, is something that is -- almost like it happened yesterday in terms of the navajo and their memory of this, and they hate carson. they think he is a genocidal character and everyone hates their conqueror, but their hatred of carson is palpable. so he is very controversial character out here here in the southwest. i was drawn to that. here's a guy subject of all

these juvenile biographies and considered an american folk hero and also considered a genocidal maniac. so how do you reconcile these two very different images? i stuck toured the book into three parts. the first part, the new men, is about the arrival of the americans into the southwest during the time of both the mountain men era, leading to fremont's intoed digs, and then the arrival of the american army. so it's shifting perspectives, shifts from various native american points of view to mexican points of view, and who is this new arrival? the new men. what are they about? why are they here? what do they want with this desert country out here? so that's part one. part two is called, a broken

country. and basically it looks at the beginning of what you might call occupation, like the conquest of the west was remarkably easy and fairly straightforward. but conquest was one thing. occupation is something different. i think we've certainly as a nation discovered this and learned this very hard lesson in afghanistan and certainly in iraq, so it's one thing to conquer a people, at least on paper. an entirely other thing to try to occupy and govern a land, especially one as complicated as this this, desert kingdom with all these different languages and religions and basically for the first 50 years, almost -- certainly first several decades, people back in washington were saying, what have we done here?

we've conquered this land but dough don't understand and it we can't good afternoon it. we should just give it back. give it back to mexico. it's too hard to run this place. there was so much violence. there was slavery and there was hostage taking and -- just unfamiliar country that people in washington didn't know what to do with. that's part two. part three is about kit carson's role in the conquest of the navajo people, and everything he did with that. monster slayer it's called, and this is from the final act of his long career, and it's probably what he is best known for, this sort of a scorched earth campaign he led into navajo country that resulted in their conquest and their removal from their beloved lands, and this great experiment that went on to try to force the navajo to

become -- to settle down and become farmers and christians living in this sort of reservation on the border with texas. so it's a big sprawling book that has many parts, and the remarkable thing is that kit carson is the through-line that makes it make sense. he just intersected with all these different aspects of history out here. when i read the book i was really worried about the sort of political correctness aspect of it. because the book is couldn'tly shifting its point of view. i'm writing about pueblo indians and then the apaches and then writing about anglo-americans and the french folks from the mountainmen days and the spanish, and it's easy to put your foot -- it's a minefield, let's put it that way. i was worried that i was offending people left, right,

and center, because there's so many different cultures out here. but that didn't really happen. i don't think -- certainly there's some criticism. there's always criticism when you write a book this big. but i was surprised by how many people have responded favorably to the book. even the navajo, who cannot stand kit carson and who have asked me at various times, i would why would you write a book bat this gee? he is as evil as hitler or genghis khan, and i went out to navajo country to give a talk at ship rock, and a very nice woman bought the book and she stood up and asked me a question, and she was holding the book and she said, i bought the book, i'm going to take it home and i'm going to try to read it, but most likely i'm just going to use it for target practice. so, she had a sense of humor about it and was very polite about it but she spoke the depth

of the feeling that is out there against carson in indian country. i started out the book believing that carson was one of the great indian killers, somehow an indian hater and a ferocious dislike of indian culture. that's what you'll hear out in navajo country. but when you get into this life you realize it's very complicated. he spoke numerous indian tongues. his first wife, who was arapaho, singing grass, was the love of his life. he had two daughters. his second wife is cheyenne. she was very close with the pueblo indians and many of the plains indian tribes. so it becomes much more complicated when you realize -- you can't say this is an indian

hater. he was someone who allied himself with certain tribes and was sort of a bitter enemy against other tribes. he didn't think monolith include about american indians. he thought specific tribes. and the last tribe he affiliated himself with was, if you want to call it that, was spanish -- the spanish tribe of new mexico. he became spanish almost. his third and final wife was spanish. they raise their kids here in new mexico. he converted to catholicism. they spoke spanish and he dreamed in spanish, he thought in spanish, his last words right before his death were in spanish. so, the spanish at those times here in new mexico, the moral enemy was the navajo. so, i think that's kind of the

way he thought in terms of tribal allegiances that ran deep, and so when he got the assignment to go round up the navajo, he was willing to do it. it doesn't mean he hated indians. it meant that he still thought, i think in this kind of tribal way, and that explains a lot better his motivation for doing what he did. >> booktv recently explored the historical and literary culture of santa fe new mexico with the help of our local cable partner comcast. keep watching for more from the area. [inaudible conversations] >> i'm rob dean, editor of the santa fan, that serves new mexico. it's 164 years old and we are in

the offices of the santa fe new mexican. i'm also the editor of a book published in 2010 called "santa fe: it's 100th year, exploring the past, defineing the future." the book had a humble beginning. it was not at first designed as a book. it began as a series of newspaper stories to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the founding of santa fe. in 1959, the publisher and editor of the new mexican had the presence of mind to ask a pulitzer winning novelist to write about santa fe's history as it emerged through the pages of the santa fe new mexican, and he published a well-known book called: santa fe, the autobiography of a southwestern

tunnel at that time, 110 years was news reported in the santa fe new mexican. the books we published in 2010 serves as a nice book end to that volume, again, with the same spirit. the 400 years of history of santa fe was the bedrock of this series of stories that became this book. what we identified through 400 years of history is these number of themes or trend or issues that have constant currents through santa fe's history. is not a seamless narrative from page one until the end. it is broken into 12 chapters, so the timeline is full of all of these small events and big events, to put the host of santa fe and its episodes in context. the intersection of cultures is

one of the identifying features of santa fe. its long tradition of celebrating faith and establishing diverse faith communities is another theme. of course this is a political town. the capitol city and has been the seat of government since its founding 403 years ago now. and so the exercise of political power and the development of public policy is another theme. the history of santa fe is distinctive. for one thing, santa fe became a u.s. territory in 184le and it was a territory for a very long time. the country and washington were reluctant to make santa fe a state. that eventually happened in 1912. new mexico existed as a territory for so long in so many

ways doesn't seem to fit the rest of the country. in fact santa fe proudly, for a long, long time, has described itself as the city different. santa fe was -- and new mexico were explored by the spanish, from the south to the north, not from anglos from the east the west as one difference. this is a community that is closely tied the catholic church. priests accompanied spanish settlers on the way north and established the community and churches in accept the are inseparable. of course this was a spanish-speaking territory. populated mostly by people of hispanic heritage, and there were questions from the east about what a new mexico and santa fe fit the definition of

america. the flip side of that is there was a curiosity about whether santa fe and new mexico felt like it belonged, and there was indeed many episodes of resistance to federal rule in new mexico. what is going on today, this rich and diverse body of faith communities in santa fe, we constructed that on top of this foundation of faith being part of santa fe's history from the very start. santa fe has been the subject of many books by many writers, a diverse range of writers and this book has a terrific bibliography for anyone that wants to read about santa fe.

>> now more from santa fe, new mexico, home to about 80,000 people and 250 art galleries. santa fe boasts a rich historical and literary culture. with the help of our local cable partner, book tv takes a tour of collected books book store. one of santa fe's 17 book stores. [applause] >> welcome to collective works book store and coffee house. we're in santa fe, new mexico. my name is dorothy massey and my daughter and co-owner, mary wilson and i have owned collected works for the last 1860 its now 35 years at santa fe's oldest and we think best independent in the city. santa fe has a population of 80,000 people and it supports no less than 17 independent book stores. how does collective works and

the other 16 stay afloat? it's not easy. we all work very hard at what we do, and it's a very mutually supportive community of book store owners. the city itself is tri-cultural with an amazing amount of very well-read, very literary people. we boast more authors and poets, both genuine and wanna-bes, than most communities. and there's a combination of six major organizations, an incredible museum system here, wonderful arts, ballet, opera. it is a rich cultural city, and the people that live here and the people that visit here come out and support that culture in all of its ramifications. the literary arts is just one of many here.

i think what sets collected works apart is the fact that we really have the space, we're very fortunate to be in this beautiful space. we have the space to become a community center, and the fact we do more than sell books. we have a very active children's program. we're not a only in the schools this rotary club and other endeavors, but we are also running our own story hour here two morning a week. we have the space to do that. we have the space in the coffee house to donate out to 501cs all over the city for their special events. we don't charge for them. it gets people into thester, store, so it's not totally kindness on our part but it brings people into the store and gives the community a sense that this is their store, they belong here and we belong to them. very often the first thing that is said is, wow, it smells like

a book store. and i think people enjoy that. they enjoy the fact that we have people who really know and read the books, and book selling is very, very different from selling almost anything else. you can go into a store and see a red sweater and if you like it you can try it on, and if i looks good you pay for and it walk out. but 90% of the time you haven't read the product you're buying when you're in a book store so there is a great sense of mutual trust, mutual excitement in order to be able to supply that to the people who visit the store, both locals and visitors. we have to have a very well-read colleagues here. and there are 16 of us working here at collected works between the coffee house and the book store. i would he less thanhunt i didn't tell you it's been a very interesting three years since -- or four years since the

recession, moving here and launching the store, and obviously competing head-to-head with internet sales, which at least in the state of new mexico, at least as we speak now, still do not charge sales tax. we cannot afford to give the discounts and we are required to collect the tax. so, we're not playing on a level playing field. however, having said all of that, i truly believe that the public perception of giant corporations is changing. the people understand the importance of supporting local endeavor which hires local people, pays local taxes, is involved with the local community, and i am very proud of the 15 colleagues that work here with me. we have a remarkable scientific community, both here and of course in los alamos, and they

lost their independent book store a month ago. so we do a great deal with science and theory and a great deal with philosophy. this is a deeply religious city. people are anxious to know about other religions so religion does well. this whole wall behind me is paperback fiction, and that rolls out of here on a steady basis. both to locals and visitors who want something light to read while they're traveling and nothing too terribly important. the opera, break fast meets here all winter long before the simulcasts of the opera, which comes to santa fe along with million of viewers across the world, and there's a breakfast here and a lecture. so we do lot with music and a lot with art and pretty much everything. the history of santa fe is rooted in three major cultures.

the native american, the hispanics, and the anglo. that's obviously oversimply identifying things. but each one carries a heritage that the writers are anxious to share. we boast the best of the young native american writers working today. we do events for the indian school here. we boast the best of the spanish colonial art market. we sell books of the indian market. in august, which is the largest native american art market in the world, and for many years we sold books at the spanish market. the largest hispanic market in the world. so these cultures are here and there's only 80,000 of us, so we're all falling all over each other and the sharing and support that is universal in santa fe makes it a wonderfully

exciting place to be. from the very early days, santa fe was a mecca for artists who were free-thinking. a lot of people left the more structured societies of the east in order to practice their religion, their lifestyle, their intellectual thoughts, share with whatever friend or acquaintances they wanted to, and so it has always been a very yeasty place for people who are really thinking for themselves, and it is only natural that the gorgeousness of the scenery. the light which attracts the photographers and the visual artists and then the performing artist, who managed to both dance and sing at 7,000 feet above sea level -- it's quite amazing -- but the availability of a small town makes it easy for people to become intime platly acquainted with those in the arts to serve on boards fairly quickly, to attend events

to meet artists. and the cross-culture of visual arts, performing arts, and literary arts, is just a natural. >> by the santa fe opera. the venue is the theater. children came from all of the city to see it, and paul and barb pressed in albuquerque produced this beautiful book. collected works shows the book at the event, and we schad some leftovers. those leftovers went the city, extra stock. it then went as a part of a sister city program through the local gentleman down to mexico, and went to children in mexico. so there you have the literary

arts, the performing arts, the educational value, and the city cultural outreach, all in one volume. wherever you are, going in and investigate a local store. see if you like it. try to form an allegiance to it. if you don't like what they carry, tell them. a lot of what we order comes from suggestions from our customers. i wish you hat this book or that book and we'll get it for them and very often we'll get another copy for the store and very often that will sell quickly. so go to your local store, whatever you're trying to buy, see what they have, talk to the people. these are your neighbors. >> many years ago, louis brandeis wrote that the most important office in a democracy

is the office of citizen. democracy, of course, is rooted and based in the notion of an enlightened citizenry. some of us think democracy is defined by the ritual of voting. of course in voting -- voting is important in a democracy, but voting take place all over the world. takes place in democracies. it takes place in dictatorships. it takes place in to tall tear yap -- totalitarian societies. voting alone does not mean we live in a free society. we live in a free society when it is based on an enlightened citizenry that takes that

enlightenment into action, causing those whom we would elect to honor our ideals as a nation. >> author, activist and transafrica founder rap cal robinson, taking your calls, e-mails, facebook comments and tweets in depth, this sunday at noon eastern on book tv on c-span2.

lawrence wright debuts on the list third with his look into the world of the church of scientology in going clear, kyl scientology, hollywood, the prism of belief. number four, the assassination of john f. kennedy. the book in its 16th week on the list. mark owen, a detailed account of the mission to kill osama bin laden is fifth, followed by bill o'riley's second appearance on the lest, killing lincoln. the creators of total frat are seventh with their book of fraternity humor. the book's first week on the bestseller list. eighth, the chronicle of the percentage transformations of six people in their book, ten years later. pulitzer prize winning author

jon meacham's story of thomas eversend, and then the story of an american and german pilot flying over germany in 1943 with, a higher call. for more on these best sellers go to ny times.com and click on arts. >> if you want to convert people you have to first of all persuade them their soul is in dire danger. ...

>> there is always more than one face to issue and more to appearances. there is an embodiment of the lesson. when it comes to humanity and

appearances, it is 10 to be done in an influential way like a good teacher. we have the wisdom of looking at both sides of the question. it is part of the crossroads where human beings get confused. it is so confusing that this is not allowed in the house. this place is just too temperamental. and before you do anything in religion, before you warship in the of the deities, make sure that you know the moral issues. the issues can deliver straight in the delivery that is done

away with outlying that makes you the center for the message. that is because they are a lesson. so when this was looked at among the other deities, the god of purity, the god of war, we deal with the elements and etc. that is the issue. this person says, that is the devil. so the issue becomes the christian devil, satan. and even in the translation of the bible, the issues are anything but evil. that is the truth. on the contrary, you will find a symbol of it because it allows us to interpret the descriptions

of wisdom that is bound up far and wide. it is a divine sort of ambience. it is kind of painful to find men and women referring to this. by contrast, look at what happened in this latest move to latin america. we arrive with the knowledge that things were feared by the christian missionaries. slaves adopted this as their patron deity.

just to scare the christians who wanted them to convert. it became the paramount symbol of resistance in latin america and resistance. it went beyond that. in some parts you will find that the issue has been elevated to the supreme deity. simply because that was the symbol that was there. the protagonist for freedom. we find the transposition dating across the atlantic. suddenly it became not only a symbol of resistance in the new world, but in parts of brazil. if you go by year and you go to a yorba shrine or other parts,

there will be a supreme deity. now, consider the history of the missionaries in africa in this world especially. this goes back a couple of centuries. imagine that today. to be a follower of this religion is to burn virtually a death sentence in certain parts. christians also earned a death sentence. and of course many respond in kind and set upon muslim college. but the level of intolerance is based on ignorance he found find

out that the church has been burned down, worshipers and machine guns and worshipers are bombed and there are different kinds of purity. one side considers the other side not sufficiently. they are therefore deserving. the institution is more complicated. there is never one single issue that leads to this stabilization is tidy. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. here's a look at some headlines. barnes & noble planned to close

a third of their bookstores over the next decade. the company cites the changes in the publishing industry as a reason to either presence is decreasing. they will remain the largest book retailer chain. amazon has announced their e-book sales are up by 70%. in physical sales are up only 5%. ceo said they reported their lowest growth rate in the past 17 years. the rise in sales has made e-books a multibillion-dollar category for the company. outgoing secretary of state hillary clinton has confirmed that she is planning to write another memoir. her first memoir was published in 2003. journalist and pulitzer prize-winning author stanley

karnow passed away on january 27. you can get the latest news by going to our website at a span.org. and a nonfiction essay entitled guns, which has been published as an amazon kindle single this week you can find out about stephen king's latest lease on his website, stephen king.com. like us on facebook at facebook.com/booktv or follow us on twitter at booktv. you can also visit our website at booktv.org and click on news about books. booktv interviewed jeffrey macris about his book, "the politics and security of the gulf."

this is part of booktv's college college series. it is about 20 minutes long. >> host: jeffrey macris, what is your title mean? >> welcome we represent military professors as a hybrid, adjoining of the professional officer corps, and the professional educators at the naval academy. i spent the first half of my naval career flying aircraft to the u.s. navy. about 10 years ago, i transitioned over to academia. where i had an out standing opportunity to go to school where i specialize in middle eastern history. >> host: now an author, "the

politics and security of the gulf" is the name of your book. that's a big topic, isn't it? >> guest: yes, it is. the united states has been involved in three hot wars. it is a big topic that needs to be discussed and investigated. which is part of the reason why we took on this topic. >> host: where you begin talking about united states involvement? >> guest: the u.s. involvement in the middle east goes further back. we are specifically looking at the persian gulf. it really is world war ii when we get involved in a big way. >> host: why is that? >> guest: surprisingly it does not have to do directly with a whale.

it marked entry into the united states for two reasons. one is to provide a secure pathway for supplies to the soviet russian allies in their quest to defeat the germans. the persian gulf represented one pathway through a back channel of persia and iraq and iran, through the mountains and were picked up in tehran. the second reason, a much smaller percentage of personnel were involved in saudi arabia. after the end of world war ii, 60,000 uniformed and civilian troops left their supply delivery business to russia. there is a small number of advisers in saudi arabia who stuck around for decades.

it is that role that really represented america's influence that came from the gulf. >> host: when and how did they step back their involvement? >> with regard to this, it represented their quest to provide order to the imperial interests in india. on the southern coast of the golf, it was called the pilot coast. constantly fueling tribes would spill out to one another and result in attacks on india and possibly result in another great

power. so the british found themselves pulled into the gulf in the 1800s. not to colonize as they did but rather to maintain order there. they did with a relatively small amount of military force. but the story in 1800 and the 19 hundreds up until the early 1970s was one of british hegemonic control over the persian gulf area he was in the aftermath of world war ii and the independence of india that the british began their slow and long retrenchment from the persian gulf. with the independence of india in the 1940s, the british lost the rationale for the military presence in the gulf. they lost their military presence that maintain order for

so long. >> host: to the americans step in because they were asked to? >> guest: the british control were shepherding over the gulf is one that plays itself out over about 20 years. in 1968 when the british announced their impending withdrawal, the americans initially said in very explicit terms that we will not replace the british. by january of 1968, britain's departure came during the same month in vietnam. there was no interest anywhere in washington on capitol hill at all for any additional commitments, military commitments in asia. so the british b. so the british began three years of turnover and many of the

small emirates were set off in a path for independent. so in late 1971 when the british were through and there were a series of independent states independent states that emerged, the united states nor britain was their to help quell some of the interstate pressures that have brought the british there during the previous century. in the absence of american power, washington had to rely on in the absence of american power, washington had to rely on to serve its. the saudi arabians and the iranians. the same two countries after world war ii in which the united states military stuck around to help train. >> host: first off, was there any advancement on the part of some of the countries in the middle east were you talk about taking over to manage their affairs or was the resentment in

the persian gulf area about that? >> guest: it is a complicated question. i would think for public consumption during 1968 to 1971 when the british are managing their withdrawal, many of the arab emirates announce that they were happy to see the british we. under the guise of the persian gulf, they publicly profess that they didn't want the united states to replace them. in private, on the other hand, the air of small emirates along the southern coast are petrified for 150 years. they had enjoyed a certain degree of british protection for that long. the small emirates and their

leaders in these diplomatic gatherings during these three years made offers to london and also to washington to offer financial incentives for the british and the americans. or were they afraid of? well, they were afraid of their giant neighbor to the north. iran. since world war ii, really sends exertion over the region. many of the arab states harbored border disputes with their neighbors. some claiming the territory of the others, some claiming the islands in between the different countries. so there was fear of what was to come in the absence of the

hegemonic british presence. although those concerns were most often aired in private and not in public area. >> host: when the u.s. stepped up its involvement in the middle east, what would our successes and failures? >> guest: with regard to this 1971 when it sailed away for the last time and set these countries for a, there was, for the first time in 150 years, it was no major western superpower to help quell the disorder in between the feuding parties that brought the british to the region. americans peasley said they were not interested in stepping in to assume any of those same security things security commitments that the british dead. americans were happy to maintain

in order of someone's better. however, over the ensuing two decades, the west suffered a series of catastrophic foreign-policy setbacks that step-by-step to the united states back to the gulf of mexico. by 1991, had assumed virtually the same security commitments that the british had been doing for 150 years. so the disc disruptions. they had response to the israeli crisis to the west. the arab states were engaged in oil production cutback and oil

production increases. the united states quickly found that it had few military options to influence what is going on in the arab world. during the. of 1868 going to 1871, the small emirates on the southern side, bases were about ready to give up. and yet the united states said no. well, last forward and the united states no longer has access to that that had previously been offered. united states takes an initial step towards military commitments and involvement much further into the indian ocean and towards the gulf. and they began to look at an

island base in the indian ocean. they began to explore improvements that would allow it project force to the region without having to depend upon the host nation support. the second step at the united states took came later on. the iranian revolution in 1978 and 1979. united states had to rely on saudi arabia and iran in the aftermath of british withdraw because of america's involvement in vietnam. with the primary pillar, one of the two twin pillars now gone, the united states had to figure a way to project military power since its surrogates were no longer shepherding after western interest. and we see here with the carter

administration, late in the carter administration, in his state of the union speech in 1980, president carter said in no uncertain terms that an attack on western interests in the persian gulf represent an attack on u.s. idle national interests. in the u.s. will be prepared to use military force in defense of that interest. of course, we did not have in the 1970s, a robust military that would provide the opportunity to deploy over long distances. nevertheless, it began that the united states assume security responsibilities. the next step that was taken towards the duties that the british had done came in the iran iraq war that continued through most of the 1980s.

during the reagan administration, trying upon that very same standard that president carter had put forward projected military force into the gulf in the refighting of tankers and using the u.s. military to do that and escorting ships through the gulf. putting the u.s. military in harms way. in 1991 the united states engaged in operation desert shield and desert storm. so after 1991, the united states never laughed red it has been maintaining order. it has been ensuring the free

trade in and out and around the golf, the missions that the british had been doing in the 1800s and 19 hundreds. since then, it has been a time that is separated by what i call chaos. >> host: can this continue? you see a continuing? should it can you on this basis? >> guest: those are obviously decisions at the highest levels of the american administration must investigate and be committed. from my training as a historian i will offer an insight that the gulf, in and of itself is inherently unstable. it is what they would call anarchy, meaning that there is

no one power that is strong enough to be able to impose its will upon all of the others. putting it in a constant competition and tension with one another. three regional powers, iran, iraq, and saudi arabia and the smaller emirates to the south that are virtually defenseless in and of themselves. kuwait and oman. those of smaller emirates, it is worth noting, emerged only during a period of british hegemony. they allow these states to emerge separate from those other regional superpowers.

if it wasn't for the british presence in the 1900, kuwait almost certainly would've been consumed by a rock. it probably would've been gobbled up by the iranians. the uae probably would have been swept over by the saudi's. there is inherent tension. that is in addition to the great tension between the southern side of the gulf and the persians and the iranians to the north. so since the 1800s, it was that presence of the independent agent who are able to keep many of these tensions under control. many of the local actors did not welcome the british there. they understood that as well. it did provide for an amount of stability. when that stability happen in

the 1970s, and this comes out in the wall, we have underlined tensions of what caused many of the problems. it eventually drew the united states against its will back to assume the same security commitment to the british had held before. >> host: your book is trickier. it is entitled "the politics and security of the gulf." >> guest: i was able to go to the johns hopkins school of international studies and i had a wonderful blessing to study with world renowned scholars. professor eliot cohen is a professor of strategic audis of military history.

in my own academic work, the military history aspect of the superpower involvement in the middle east helped to shape the framing of this project. which was how london and washington shaping history of the gulf and how they have been shaped by this. >> host: what is the difference between flying errors and flying airplanes. >> you are dealing with the cockpit and you never know what you're going to get. in a classroom, you never know what they will ask you. but it's great to be at the